Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Monday July 06, 2009 @09:00AM
from the difference-makers dept.

Lars Sobiraj submitted an interview with Daniel Schmitt of WikiLeaks. "He encourages all readers and warns his opponents — WikiLeaks has the means to make our society better, to create a world which stands united and strong against abuse — locally and nationally as well as globally. Modern, fast, world-wide technology makes it possible. In the interview, Daniel explains in detail how this will be done, with the help of WikiLeaks and all its supporters."

I don't think the Slashdot crowd should need convincing that Wikileaks is a force for good. However, passive support won't be enough for such a contentious organisation, so do what I did and show them some love [wikileaks.org].

(Hmm, I just noticed that PayPal donation is currently down, which is rather awkward...)

In the context of the latest developments in a complex context and the necessary political support for a certain cause, we are considering marking certain Tweets with a hashtag for emergencies which signifies that it has to do with something very important which needs the world's attention. #EMERGENCY or something like that. We have to try and make sure that dramatic developments in the world get the necessary attention.

Honestly, when did the humble RSS feed or - heaven forfend - an actual webpage become an unacceptable way of disseminating information?

"The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works.. Wikileaks would throw all of this out"

The people have a right to know what its government is doing on their behalf. Generally, if it can't stand the cold light of day, then they shouldn't be doing it. The ACTA [wikileaks.org] secret agreement being a case in point.

The problem is one of trust. These days, I don't trust my government (UK) enough to let them make decisions about what I don't get to see. If they wanted to keep this trust, all they had to do was not oppose the release of their expenses quite so vigorously.

Couple of things
[1] Your argument assumes that there is good in keeping secrets? As in the lesser evil perspective, or perhaps a utility question of greater good? If that is so then wikileaks provides an excellent place for fairness - ardent defenders armed with 'Good Intentions' are bypassed and allow for universal questioning of the facts rather than relying on a few keen fellows to decide the good for all.
[2] Truth is universal, this is not a axiom preaching nor a statement of an idealist, 2 + 2 is the same for everyone. You see it in the number of bricks, coins and et cetera. Exposure of the truth cannot be harmful to the world - it can only expose a lie and a lie even at the stake of 'The Children' cannot be good for us all.

Seriously, why are people so paranoid about the formula for these things? Most nerve gases are very similar to industrial pesticides (in fact, VX gas was originally intended to be a pesticide), and if we kept the knowledge of how to synthesize nerve agents top secret then we could not educate chemists or chemical engineers.

The fact of the matter is that in a free society, information should flow freely. Wikileaks is not posting the personal information of the average citizen, they are posting information about the misconduct of governments, government officials, and corporations -- information which the average citizen has a right to know. There is a huge difference between a defense contractor conspiring with a national government to start a war and some guy who is having an affair with his neighbor's wife.

The difference is we're not funding him with our tax money. We fund wikileaks with money, so I expect transparency. As another poster has mentioned, wikileaks financials have been leaked - and they weren't removed. When people are paying for a public organization, they have a right to know where their money is going and what the actions of that organization are. Further, knowledge that information will be brought to light will hopefully end a lot of clandestine things that go on outside of public view. Things like the Contra scandal and General Oliver North's secret wars. US imperialism in Panama and the Philippines. The US's habit of gaining funding from "unsubsidized government revenue streams." When governments are allowed to use dirty business and treat the rest of the world like shit with no accountability, that tends to backfire. Then who gets blown up when a terrorist bomb goes off in retaliation from whoever we've pissed off? 99% of the time, its not government officials - its civilians.

Since I'm sure this posting will be flooded with a lot of love for Wikileaks, I feel I have to try to post possible negatives.

We must never forget this. We have the means to make our society better, to form a world in which there is a strong and united opposition against abuse. Locally, nationally, globally.

One problem I've often seen in the past with regards to certain activist groups is their unintentional imposition of values on the people they claim to support. A very common example in places like Europe and occasionally Canada is feminist groups speaking on behalf of oppressed Muslim women who have to wear certain kinds of clothing. Some of these women are oppressed, but usually the solution those groups present is as undesirable to them as is the original problem. Additionally, most of the Muslim women seriously dispute the notion that they are oppressed, only to be dismissively told that they don't see it because they're not yet free. In other words, the activist groups have this attitude of "We know what's right and the rest of the world is wrong." If any of you have spent a lot of times with activists, I think you'll find this is a trap often fallen into.

I've seen similar issues with some human rights organizations, labor oriented organizations, etc. They often fail to realize that while a problem may exist, the solution in their own society may be a poor solution in other societies.

The real question is: Can Wikileaks avoid such a path? Or will they ultimately take on certain philosophies with the belief that they hold for all humanity, while possibly having little experience with most of the world's major cultures. So far they seem to have done well, but I suspect that this is something they'll need to actively guard against.

The "National Security" argument is valid, but it is all too easy for it to be abused. Especially considering that we cannot properly judge the usage. We just have to accept when told "this is secret and I can't explain why it needs to be secret."

Wikileaks would throw all of this out and make themselves (the collective leakers) the sole arbiter of what is in the national interest and what is not with respect to keeping secrets.

Wikileaks is not the "sole arbiter" and they do not paint themselves as such. Publicizing leaked information has been a staple of investigative journalism for a long, long time. And it is generally acknowledged that this is one of the most beneficial things that journalism does for a democratic society: publicize the failures and corruptions of "the system"... particularly in those cases where "the system" is gaming itself to keep that information hidden.

Wikileaks is thus an extension of tried-and-true techniques of leaking scandal, applied to a digital age. It fits in nicely with journalistic infrastructure, providing a way to get information out to the public in cases where entrenched powers would like to hide it.

So what wikileaks does is to substitute the judgment of a system, made of up of untold knowledgeable individuals, with the judgment of one or two cranks with an ax to grind. The cranks may be right sometimes, but I think more often that not they will be wrong.

I disagree. The "leaked information journalism" network (of which Wikileaks is a part) is another system made up of untold individuals, using their judgment to decide what to leak and publicize, and what not to. You say the system doesn't work on average. Can you point to a large number of things that were leaked and were damaging to National Security, without having a significant benefit with respect to democracy and stamping-out corruption? How does the number of such 'mistakes' compare to the number of 'legitimate leaks,' where the information really had no right to be suppressed?

Another point to consider is that we don't know how many bits of leaked information were not publicized. The people who get hold of the secret data have choices to make. They can publicize it or not (this goes for someone considering uploading to Wikileaks, a journalist, etc.). Actually the fact that very few National-Security-compromising secrets have seen the light of day (troop movements, launch codes, etc.) suggests people are using appropriate discretion in leaking. Most of the things leaked are damaging to some individuals and organizations... but not a matter of security (military or economic or other). In short, they mostly deserve to be leaked.

Again, I think you're going to have to defend your "more often [than] not they will be wrong" claim with specifics. As far as I can tell, information leaking has always been, and will continue to be, a vital portion of maintaining a democracy. Things like FOIA are also good, mind you. But to maintain a democracy we, the individual people making up the nation, must do our part in terms of oversight... which will occasionally mean breaking one set of rules in order to uphold a much more important set of ideals.

The problem is one of trust. These days, I don't trust my government (UK) enough to let them make decisions about what I don't get to see. If they wanted to keep this trust, all they had to do was not oppose the release of their expenses quite so vigorously.

You would trust wikileaks though? You would trust the judgment of a few individuals with their own agenda? If you don't trust your government and the individuals who run it with their own agenda why would you trust wikileaks any more? They aren't some super moral group of people. They are as human and corruptible as your government, or you or I am for that matter.

It's very popular to bash governments for their many mistakes and foibles, but the problem is none of us have come up with an better solution for managing our society. It is so easy to point a finger, but it is our responsibility, as much as those of our leaders, to ensure a sound government. Even when I don't like my currently elected officials, their policies, and their crap, at least I have a voice in it no matter how small that might be. With wikileaks I have no voice, no say, nothing. Wikileaks is going to be better than what we have now? In what way? If the FOIA or any other accountability measure isn't up to snuff fix it, but don't allow some third party app to hijack the OS. Get it?

People who argue how damaging things can be if they were made public completely forget that if certain things were known earlier... things like this wouldn't NEED to be kept hidden.

This huge cloud of people who just don't want to know and go on with their happy day lives is exactly what allows events to build up where releasing the information COULD be damaging.

But lets be honest. How worse off do you think the United States could be right now in the eyes of the world?

You will always have followers who don't want to know things and want the *smart* people to deal with it. The problem is, often enough those smart people aren't smart... or are greedy, power hungry... or otherwise influenced. Public eye on what they do is the ONLY thing stopping them. Watchdogs so to speak. Most of them in jobs just like you and me who happen to be there when something happens.

The fear is that people will overreact to the sheer amount of hidden crap and revolt, or some religious nutjob will start calling the end of days and 50,000 idiots will believe him. But if you start slowly... revealing the truth bit by bit people will gradually become adjusted to it.

The reason this will never happen is those in power will suddenly lose the ability to do things that might have been the "easy" way. It also will prevent us from doing things for "the good" that would be seen as "the bad". But that's a tradeoff I want to see simply because... the person making that decision does not have to answer to anyone if they were wrong. That should always be part of leadership.

If someone decided to leak any of the information you described, they wouldn't need WikiLeaks to do it. WikiLeaks does not make it any easier for people to leak information, it just makes said information available to the public for no charge. Financial troubles is one of the largest reasons for information leaks, which is why individuals with access to classified government information have to go through regular credit checks. As there is no money to be made by leaking info to WikiLeaks, this is not a factor here. Honestly, it would be safer for critical information to be leaked through WikiLeaks, where the government can see it and know that it's out there, than for it to be leaked under-the-table.

Strange, with a cursory glance at wikileaks I could not find an instance of any private company R&D proposals. Everything on there is something which is in some way public. The closest was Cisco marketing material for the US Government. I pay for the government, so why shouldn't I be able to see what cisco is claiming to sell to the goverment I am paying for? Similarly, people pay for scientology, and its a church. It receives special tax status. So I have a right to see what goes on inside of it. All other items are government based, or otherwise censored. Hell, about the only thing you could even remotely argue from the looks of it would be the leaked rituals of fraternities - and if you really can compare leaking a fraternity's initiation ritual to losing millions on R&D, I think you fail at teh maths. Again, this was a cursory look, but your example seems to be completely off base and unfounded. Unless your R&D proposal is for a government, and remember that we the people ARE the government and therefore have a right to see it, I don't think it will be showing up on wikileaks.

New modes of information dissemination don't destroy the old ones. People can, and will, still use web sites and RSS feeds and IRC and telephone calls to disseminate information. But why not add Twitter to the mix? And why not establish some simple social rules for each of those communication channels to be used as effectively as possible?

Your argument is almost like saying "Why do we need to establish 'SOS' as shorthand, when people can just say 'please help us!'. And why do ships bother using flags and lights to communicate to each other, when they can just yell at one another."

I'm not arguing that Twitter is a world-changing paradigm-shift. But it's not useless. It's fast and easy to use and bridges different communication modes (text messaging, the web, RSS, etc.). That's why it has been helpful in emergency circumstances; because people were able to update their Twitters status very quickly and easily, even from a mobile device... yet the answer was broadcast across the web, enabling everyone to share in the knowledge.

"you trust the people you elect". . Are you kidding me? You think I trust any elected official to make decisions in the best interest of the country? The whole point of wikileaks is that I don't trust _any_ of the elected officials.

The entire security process around both of those entities should assume that the "attacker" has- the complete resources of a modern government at its disposal- the experience and wherewithal to murder anyone necessary to obtain secrets- the ability to plant multiple human spies inside the organizations in each scheme

As such, any process should be resistant to attackers who know all of the information in excruciating detail.

Certainly security through obscurity can help, but it is not sufficient. I expect my government to spend the resources necessary to build a process (a human and information machine) that is resistent to tampering, infiltration, and information disclosure, in the sense that it doesn't guarantee that these never happen, it instead guarantees that the system/process continues to function properly while sustaining a certan amount of all of these defects.

IOW: understand the threats; have mitigations for each.

I'd be a lot more concerned if wikileaks was posting the home address, SSN, and home alarm de-arming instructions of doctors that performed abortions, or people who had bad things to say about the prophet muhammed. Those people typically do _not_ have the experience, time, money, or sanity to protect themselves from even 1 agitated nutcase.

But lets be honest. How worse off do you think the United States could be right now in the eyes of the world?

That depends entirely on which "eyes" you want to look through, does it not?

Frankly, I'm not interested in a world popularity contest. I don't really care if Iran thinks the U.S. is a great nation. Frankly, it won't think the U.S. is a great nation as long as it thinks the entire world should be under Islamic rule. Just an example.

My question is this: how many nations in the world do you think actually want the U.S. to be successful, as opposed to wanting their own country to assume the prominence that the U.S. has enjoyed for a while now? Do you think Britain thought highly of the U.S. in the late 1700s/early 1800s? Do you think most of the world thought highly of the U.S. during World War I/World War II?

If the point of politics is to "look good" to other countries, then politics is severely messed up. If the point, on the other hand, is to do what our country/people think is right to do, then we have a point for discussion. Otherwise, we're just a puppet in a grand popularity contest. And when push comes to shove, when North Korea or some other country decides it wants to rule the world. the Popularity Contest is going to seem pretty silly in comparison to the "Uh, guys, we need to deal with this country forcefully before they decide to blow us all up in because we don't match their ideology." That's kinda what happened in the World Wars. Germany had an ideological difference. They wanted to rule the world with it (it's happened a few times in history...). If we only had "popular" countries (say... countries that decided to disarm...), I'm pretty sure we'd all be speaking German right now. Except for non-Aryan races, who wouldn't exist.

And I'm not going to ask pardon for saying that the human race is capable of doing such awful things in the 21st century. We're quite capable of making some pretty stupid decisions and believing some insanely stupid things. And, IMO, it's insanely stupid to think that if the U.S. were just more popular with the worlds' countries, those countries would like the U.S. better. Nobody, especially those greedy for power, like a powerful country that is able to "threaten" a country. Unfortunately for humanity, it looks like that power is always going to exist; the question is, who has it and what beliefs do they hold to. Some countries are a lot less freedom-loving than others.

But if you start slowly... revealing the truth bit by bit people will gradually become adjusted to it.

Let's start with talking about the truth about human nature. Human nature is greedy, power-hungry, and wants to rule. Let's not forget that there are countries and people groups out there that pretty much would rather everyone believed (externally) the way they do or die. I'm not using words like "terrorist" or "muslim," because I'm not talking about any specific group. I'm saying that this is human nature, and has been for all of recorded human history. There's a reason you had really powerful nations in history like Egypt, Greece, Rome, Assyria, etc... Germany, Russia, U.S., Korea, Iran... they all have different ideologies, but most countries like to be in control.

So, here is what I think the question really is... now that we have technology that can allow a very small country to threaten the world ("do this or we blow all of you up"), it becomes very important to be able to do more than talk to them or issue warnings/resolutions at them. It's the same as a playground bully. You don't "defeat" the bully by talking to him, making him see the error in his ways and hoping he joins you for a piece of cake and some tea. Bullies won't back down as long as they think they can bully their way out of it. Something has to make them realize this. The question is: who is the one that gets to have the power to stop the bullies, or should we just talk to the bullie

If this R&D is worth millions, then the coworker could sell it to a Chinese company for a tidy profit and nobody would know. (They might strongly suspect, but it could be convergent research.) At least with Wikileaks, the company could confirm that it's been leaked and try to take action against the coworker. So given the choice between the hypothetical coworker seeking only revenge via Wikileaks and seeking both revenge and money via selling it directly to the hypothetical Chinese company...well, I think you can see my point.

Disclaimer: Selling R&D to the Chinese is bad and leads to jail time, mmmkay.

True. That's the same logic that we had attacking Iraq: "Just because no one has found WMDs yet doesn't mean we won't find them!" I expect your line of thinking to work out as well as it has in other places where it has been employed. I think you utterly miss the point of wikileaks, and am thinking you really need to read the bill of rights (if you're an American) so you can see what many people fought and died to give you, before you pish it away in the name of cited corporate profits that don't even exist. We will have to agree to disagree.

You make another very good point. Yes, accountability is key, especially among those with power. The President of the US, and the US government, have a lot of power. Wikilieaks has less power, though being given access to all kinds of leaked information of course gives them some measure of power.

But in the real world, we cannot count on absolutes. In particular we cannot set up systems that are so absolute that they become inflexible and incapable of dealing with the frailties of humanity (which include corruption, pride, shame, greed, etc.)

I fully agree that there is something unseemly about Wikileaks being in no way accountable. And yet that very freedom is what enables it to do any kind of good at all: only a truly free agent will have the ability to publish all of those things that the powers-that-be want to keep hidden.

I'm not advocating anarchy or a complete disregard for the rule of law. The government does a decent job; there are checks-and-balances; and accountability of those in power is crucial. But all that is not enough. We also need a mechanism for action when all those checks-and-balances fail (and we know from experience that they will indeed fail). Wikileaks is part of that mechanism: a system (of last resort) enabling us to get at necessary truths when the system fails to deliver that information to the public. Like all systems, Wikileaks itself is subject to misuse. That is part of the price we pay... the result of living in an imperfect world. But Wikileaks (I argue) does more good than harm. It is a necessary counterpoint to the power of government.

The reason I think Wikileaks is helpful, on the balance, is of course because I believe in freedom of information, and transparency, and accountability. Yes, there are cases where things "really truly" should be kept secret. But those cases are few and far between, and at present most governments classify information far more than is really necessary. Given that we live in such a world of over-secrecy, things like Wikileaks restore balance, since there are very few things that really shouldn't be public knowledge (and, chances are, people won't even try to leak such things).

Quite the opposite is true: It aims to ensure the anonymity of its sources to the best. It aims for maximum uptime, distributes its server locations strategically to ensure operations even against wide-spread censorship and disruption and aims to verify the integrity of the information it provides. (Not its authenticity, mind you. That is someone else's job.) That's more than you could ask for from most web hosting providers.

it certainly goes against any geek value

Quite the opposite is true, again: Openness of information, transparency of official bodies and procedures, exposure of censorship and malicious activities, using technology to promote a social good - and most importantly: the irresistible lust for anything fancy and exciting. All they lack is Nerf Guns.

While private R&D might end up on WikiLeaks, there is none of it there so far as far as I can tell. The rather obvious reason for this is that it simply is not really interesting to most people, and those who want it usually pay well enough for it that your hypothetical co-worker would have to be a total and utter moron to turn to WikiLeaks with their information.

Regarding the military: Considering the (usually leaked) budget of espionage and counter-espionage outfits around the world I would wager a bet that any really sensitive information that ends up on WikiLeaks is already common knowledge among most parties involved. And if you find your nation's secrets there you at least know it has been burned.

WikiLeaks really is a tool for distributing information to the public at large. Interested parties in a specific field usually will already have their sources and means of acquiring whatever information they need. It's us, the Great Unwashed, who are its target audience, because we are kept out of most circles - even if we ought to know what they are up to because their doings directly or indirectly affect our lives.

I don't believe the parent deserves modding up but the Troll mod is unfair. The post is a little too jingoistic but he unintentionally reminds us that "war is not nice" (Quote Barbara Bush) and that people die in war.

Since Danial Ellsburg did the country a favor and released the Pentagon Papers, now everybody thinks that EVERY secret is just the government trying to cover its misdeeds.

This is due entirely to the US government (amongst others, I wont argue about who is the worst, almost all western governments have earned our suspicions) actually lying and being caught out. People have no reason to trust that secrets are being made for their beinift. This is a hole the US govt dug for itself, if they want trust back then they have to earn it.

The problem with that is that I've seen secret tech docs on hardware in the field of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan show up on this Wikileaks site, so therefore the enemy undoubtedly has too.

Military secrets act in the UK and Australia specifies that military secrets can be revealed after 50 years. The problem here is that the plans were leaked out of a secure facility, the fact wikileaks is publishing them is not an issue. Censoring wikileaks or the entire US population will not stop the fact that the plans were leaked/reverse engineered/fabricated in the first place.

Going to Afghanistan? Iraq? Have a Father / Mother / Son / Daughter / Sister / Brother / Friend in one of those places? Thanks to Wikileaks, you or they might just come back in a box,

When people die in war it is traditional and still prudent to blame the leader. For ultimately the responsibility is there. The US has been appointing political leaders to run the military so the blame lies there. Once again, if the information is available to Wikileaks it will be available to someone else. Wikileaks is the transmission medium not the source.

There's just no excuse for endangering the troops... none.

Ask that of the ones who sent them to war in the first place, and more importantly of those who were to scared/gutless to speak out against the war.